Public media today

I listen to NPR every morning, while I am multi-tasking of course, and occasionally also during the day. I used to listen much more, but now not as much. Today, a long segment was devoted to the federal government's recision of funding for public media - specifically, NPR and PBS. While I disagree with the decision and the stated reasons, I was reminded of my own experience which I previously described elsewhere (see below).

AI reality

A couple of months ago, I asked a colleague to run an experiment for me. I asked her to give her students assignments and take-home tests with the regular admonitions about academic honesty but no real controls or checks. She then graded them as usual. At the end of the semester, she gave her students an in-class, supervised test on exactly those topics. I am sure you can see what's coming.

Any questions?

I know this is a small blip in what is read everyday, but according to Google my daily readership is typically 500 - 1000 visitors a day. As most enter the site and read the recent posts, rather than crawling through every one, I assume that most of these are real people and most of those are returners hoping to find some usefual nugget.

Happy Birthday

I had a coffee and dangerously delicious English muffin the other day with a former colleague. It was her birthday the day before and she showed me a video-text sent to her by former students, still at the school she left last year, wishing her a Happy Birthday and telling her she is the "best teacher ever" and that they "love" her. All very nice of course, but one thing troubles me.

Seeing the trees

A school nearby recently had to remove nearly all its trees because they were old and diseased and a risk to anyone nearby since they were likely to fall or to lose limbs at any times. They were nearly all planted at the same time so they all had to go together. When I saw all the piles of woody debris, I remembered the time I had a chance to plant a  number of trees.

Seeing color

I was in a foreign clime the other day (same state, but very different weather) and I drove past a school proudly displaying its school colors. Gates, fences, window frames - all were painted in bright, almost florescent yellow and equally bright almost florescent purple. Someone, somewhere made this decision and chose these colors which led to my pondering on this element of a school's image.

Pay Transparency

My generally weekly coffee and a catch-up with a former colleague last week turned to the subject of pay transparency. Like many (most?) people, I am troubled by employment announcements offering "market rates" or asking for "salary requirements" rather than just posting what is being offered. I find the idea that one can be terminated for discussing one's salary or compensation structure terrible. As we chewed on this particular bone, I was reminded of how pay iniquities first propeled me into educational leadership.

It's all words

I just put in a proposal for a coaching gig with a medium-size charter school to re-orient their English Language Arts (ELA) program to one based on and around vocabulary development. Why, you ask? Well, it's a good idea and it integrates all the important elements of ELA.

Hiring consultants

For various reasons, people leave the classroom or the school or the district or the state department of education, and for various reasons some of those people then launch themselves as consultants. So far, so good. Free market. Willing seller, willing buyer and so on. However, not all who were once in education at any level good consultants make, and someone who is good at one thing may not be able to guide or to mentor in another. Some "consultants" can actually do real harm.

Why am I so popular in Singapore and Vietnam?

From time to time, I put up a post on something which interests me, just in case someone else is interested in things which interest me. Also, from time to time, I look at the stats on which posts are popular and who reads them and from where these readers come. And May 2025 has been a big one (for me).

It's so easy. Just do it.

I was listening to a discussion between a journalist and a mother about the school experiences of her highly-autistic daughter. The takeaway from the mother's position is that the school was wrong, was doing bad things and was harming her daughter. They should accept the child and let her be. What was missing of course was any consideration of everyone else in the picture, particularly the teachers.

Nothing new under the sun - now it's equitable grading

Yesterday I was sent this article* and was not surprised to see yet another example of re-inventing the wheel in education, re-naming it, claiming credit and then monetizing it. This time it concerned evaluation and grading and the new name for the old hat is equity or equitable grading.

"Public college education is the greatest investment we can make for the country"

I heard the statement quoted above on my local public radio station and while I understand, and even accept, the sentiments, I do not agree.

Pre-school costs

Shock. Horror. "The cost of child care now exceeds the price of college tuition in 38 states and the District of Columbia." So reads a recent article.* While this may be true, it is not the whole story. Because the cost of providing childcare likely costs more than the cost of providing college tuition, and without grants, donations and endowments.

A lot of this is our fault

I have recently been watching Youtube videos, and this morning "the algorithm" suggested a commentary on US and international media, and in particular media literacy. Several of the speaker's points seemed accurate or at least sensible, however I was left asking about the thing of most interest to me as a teacher, school leader and I hope at least to some extent, as an educational influencer. She did not mention the role of schools and school programs in the various things of which she spoke.

Right Revisionism

As you know, I like to steer clear of non-educational politics and while what follows is prompted by politically-driven positions, my point is educational. And what rang my bell? A right-wing commentator this morning who alleged multiple times that the US / Trump must do x,y,z to Iran because they have done bad things vis-a-vis nuclear weapons in the last few years, and other bad things in and since 1979. Separately, others have said Israel can do and should do x,y,z to Palestinians because they were brutally attacked on October 7.